Afterwards
by Izzu
Summary: Post ep 46. Follows right after Ghost. Only thing left is to keep going forward.
1. Awake

Yeap... another one. Because both of the muse for After and Afterwards are coming at me at the same time and overlapped. So doing both plot concurrently. Hope this don't crash or something.

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><p><span>Afterwards<span>

By Izzu

o

o

_Everything seemed sluggish. His words, his thoughts... his movements; felt too slow as if his whole being was paralysed._

_Why did... run?_

Someone entered the room, dressed in white robe. Followed by another—a female—appearing to assist the one in white robe. Odd utensils were taken out as the person started making assessments of Takatora's current state. The man called out a number of details as the female took notes. After feeling satisfied that he got what he wanted... the man—doctor—sent the nurse away.

The doctor gave Takatora a gentle pat. "You're a lucky one, I'll give you that. I'll be arranging some scans on your brain, but you don't need to worry. I just need to find out what happened. And then make you all better." The man nodded again. "You're really a lucky young man, Takatora-kun."

Takatora tried to say something but no sound escaped his lips.

The doctor squeezed his arm gently. "Are you looking for the young boy that kept you company all this time? I'll look for the boy after this," the doctor reassured him before getting up to leave the room.

Suddenly alarmed, Takatora tried again to call out towards the doctor, but the man already closed the door behind him.

xxx

Doctor Kitajima turned towards his assistant as he closed the door behind him.

"I heard that Mitsuzane-kun have been with the patient before this. Have you found him?"

The assistant nodded. "Yes, I received a call from the Chief Nurse. They found the boy at one of the connecting stairways, and seemed to be in a state of alarm."

Kitajima frowned. "Have the boy sent to my office. Also, arrange a CT scan for the patient and hmm...if possible, a functional MRI as well. Have the result handed to my desk once done."

"Yes, doctor," said the assistant before taking his leave.

Kitajima sighed, before turning towards the direction of his office. It seemed he needed to make another call to Director Kureshima.


	2. Micchi

Multiple POVs are fun...cept when you need to create new OCs... /sigh

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><p><span>Afterwards<span>

By Izzu

o

o

Kitajima placed a hand on Mitsuzane's arm.

"How are you feeling now, Mitsuzane-kun?" he asked as Mitsuzane shrugged.

"I'm... okay. He... _nii-san,_ how's he?" muttered Mitsuzane under his breath as Doctor Kitajima turned to his computer.

"It's amazing, indeed. Normally someone with your brother's severe injuries it was doubtful that they could make any recovery. Let alone in such a situation as your brother! It was almost impossible that such _miracle_ could happen—then again, we've seen many other _odd things_ in the past year..."

Mitsuzane nodded. "So... _nii-san_—his injuries..."

"He'll be able to make a complete recovery, in due time. He has been in coma for quite a time... after all. What puzzled me is that his brain scan showed that most of the severe damage he had sustained before had somehow _disappeared_. As if for somehow, the healing of your brother have been sped and enhanced. It's not something that our own medical knowledge were capable of, at the moment. I'd have to monitor your brother for now, to see that there won't be any other side effects to this... _miracle_."

Mitsuzane seemed to relax after hearing this. Kitajima added, "Of course, everything that I've just told you... I already relayed to Director Kureshima—"

Immediately, Mitsuzane's eyes flared. "Why did you tell him? I could manage here fine by myself!"

Kitajima frowned at him. "Are _you_?" he asked as a knock on the door made them turn around. A woman briskly entered the office as she bowed almost apologetically. Mitsuzane hastily turned back to face Kitajima.

"What's the meaning of this? I AM fine! I don't need to have another psychology therapy or whatever you're trying to do!"

"I've heard from the staff that you've been a bit... fragile, earlier. The director was concerned—" explained Kitajima as Mitsuzane stood up.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT THAT OLD FOGGY THINKS!" he snapped before storming out of the office.

The woman sighed, watching the door as Kitajima addressed her.

"Sorry about that, Sayako-kun."

Shinozaki Sayoko smiled, turning back towards him. "Don't worry about that. I'm used to it. At least right now he's more stable compared to the first few days when I got his case," she said before giving him the look. "How's the brother?"

Kitajima shrugged. "So far, I don't see any other complication. Aside from the unexplained speedy recovery—I know I shouldn't complain especially when my patient is actually getting better—everything else is quite normal. But that aside, I feel that this moment is quite critical. These two brothers...I can't help thinking that both of their recovery would depend on each other. Takatora would still need to undergo physiotherapy amongst others... and he'd need Mitsuzane to be there for him."

Sayoko nodded. "And Takatora's recovery would also determine Mitsuzane's own mental health, I see the problem. Well, I'll figure out what to do."

Kitajima let out a sigh before looking up towards her. "I'll be depending on you."

xxx

Zack was quiet as he watched the crowd becoming more charged, while the team began another dance routine. He turned towards the empty stairway, recalling the encounter he had with Micchi the day earlier. Micchi didn't come for today's dance; to his disappointment. And he was hoping to try getting Micchi to come back, dancing with the rest of the team member too. Some other time perhaps.

He sighed.

With Kouta, Mai... and Kaito no longer around, he ended up becoming the _de facto _leader of the Beat Riders... as all of the remaining team members decided to join together and dance together. And because of that, he felt that it's up to him to continue the things those three had done before. Most of the loose ends were resolved by now, except Micchi. While some of the team was still a bit wary of getting Micchi back into their circle, he felt that it was now his duty to try to repair that fractured bond between the team (especially of what's left of Team Gaim) and Micchi. He's sure that Kouta would have wanted him to do that as well. He remembered what Kouta and Mai used to say about Micchi... when the rest of the team finally found out about his true identity.

He had a lot of thinking, after returning back to Zawame. And then he started recalling the many things from the past; back when they used to be rivals with each other. Micchi back then had been different. And the more he recalled those memories the more he believed all those things Mai and Kouta have said in defense of Micchi. Once he realized that, the more he felt pity about Micchi's situation. Sure, he lost his friend Kaito and some others... but Micchi, it's his own brother.

And he had a brief glimpse of Micchi, when those soldiers had taken him, Oren-san and Jounouchi to question them about the things happening in Zawame prior. Micchi at that time had looked far worse than anything he could remember seeing. Since then, he thought he would no longer be able to see Micchi again. Much less, _talk_ to him. Until yesterday.

But Micchi seemed to be more reclusive now than when he used to be part of Team Gaim. Just approaching him yesterday was already tricky. If only he knows where to find him. Perhaps he needed to get more help.


	3. Nightmare

Afterwards

By Izzu

o

o

"I'm sorry!" Jounouchi exclaimed as he hastily cleaned up the mess on the floor and hurriedly returned to the kitchen.

"What were you doing?" said Oren right after as he also came into the kitchen; but not before reassuring the customers that the accident wasn't intentional and sending them away with a complimentary cake, courtesy of the pastry shop.

Jounouchi turned to him apologetically after he cleaned himself off the spilled cream and cakes.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's got to me today. Not like I wasn't used to serve this many customer before—everything I did today end up so badly,"

Oren stared at him worriedly, before giving a kindly smile. "Perhaps you should take a break for a while..." he said before taking a peek at the cafe and letting out a smile. "And it seemed somebody wanted to meet you."

Jounouchi cocked his head at Oren, puzzled before poking his head out of the kitchen. Zack was waving at him. He put away his apron and came over to sit at the table at the patio beside Zack.

"What's up?" he asked as Zack spared no time to explain.

"I'd like to ask you and old man Charmant for some help."

"Help? What kind?" asked Jounouchi again.

Zack let out a long sigh before speaking. "I know the old man was resourceful, and with his past connections he might be able to find out some info." Zack glanced around before leaning closer to Jounouchi. "I want you guys to help me find Micchi..." he said as Jounouchi stared at him wide-eyed.

xxx

_Falling..._

_Sometimes drowning..._

_As in from a very high place; a feeling of falling with no sense of when you'd reach the end. Sometimes it was a neverending fall; sometimes the fall did reached an end. Half the time that end involved big bodies of water. Then, there would be that other sense of suffocating._

_You tried to reach out to something, to stop the fall. Yet there was nothing that you could grab hold of..._

Takatora felt his body jerked violently awake, and as he opened his eyes he thought he saw someone standing beside him. It was blurry, yet it didn't stop him to try to reach out.

But then his eyelids grew heavy again and he returned back into the darkness.

xxx

Micchi gently took his brother's hand before pulling out a chair to sit beside him. He ran his other hand over his brother's cheeks to try to comfort him. Nightmares... that must be it. Though it had alarmed him when he came in and noticed his brother had difficulties in breathing while asleep. And then he recalled that he once had attacked his brother; leading to the fall into the sea. Where he used to believe his brother had died inside.

Feelings of guilt started to gnaw inside of him again. This was his fault. Back then, he should have tried to save his brother. Back when Ryoma-san and the others have cornered him to the edge of the cliff. Even if he wasn't strong enough to help. Even if both of them had fallen together. At least then they wouldn't have ended up being separated.

Or if he couldn't manage to save his brother, he should have gone looking for him after the three adults have left. He should have. Instead of letting out his frustrations at Kouta.

Or even if things had gone the way it had been, but instead of letting Redyue influence his actions... he went seeking his brother back and NOT fight him to the death. How many things could have happened differently, if he had chosen differently. Then perhaps, he would have not have to see the painful expression his brother was wearing right now...

_Nii-san_ had started to calm down now, the more he caressed his brother's cheeks. Micchi smiled sadly as he clasped his brother's hand and placed it on his cheeks.

It was only when his brother was asleep that he managed to recover his courage to enter the ward room again.


	4. Zack, Peco and Jounouchi

It's been a while since the last update... posting this first before taking another read on this. Not sure if I paced the argument perfectly.

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><p><span>Afterwards<span>

By Izzu

o

o

"Are you sure you'd be fine going back on your own?" Jounouchi asked as Zack waved away the concern.

"I'll be fine. It's not like I'm in a rush. And I'm taking a bus after this so not like I'll be walking all the way back."

Jounouchi grinned. "Well, I can't help worrying. And don't worry about the other matter. Oren-san said that he'd look into it."

"Thank you—"

"Zack! There you are!"

Both of them turned around as they saw Peko running towards them. He stopped in front of them panting before exclaiming, "Do you know how worried I was when I didn't see you around? Don't do this! With your foot injury too, it'll be a problem if something happened and you ended up stranded in who knows where."

Zack shrugged as he wiggled his injured foot towards Peko. "Well, as you can see... I'm pretty much still in one piece."

xxx

"So..." said Peko as they casually headed back towards their base. "Why were you looking for Jounouchi?"

Zack cast a long look towards Peko before shrugging. "It's nothing much. Was just asking for a small favour, that's all."

Peko stopped in his tracks and turned to face his friend. "A favour? On what? If you needed help, why didn't you ask me about it? Or the other team members, it's not like we don't live near each other—"

Zack bit his lips. He knew what's coming, and he didn't feel like arguing about it. He knew what Peko would think once he told him what he wanted to do; and he just don't want anything else to complicate things. "It's nothing important."

That got to Peko's nerve. "I know it. You were hiding something, tell me!"

"It's none of your—" Peko grabbed on his arm stubbornly as Zack groaned. "Fine! I just wanted his and Oren's help to find out where Micchi lives, okay?"

As expected, Peko released his arm out of surprise.

"You're looking for _that_ guy? Why? What kind of business—why do you even _want_ to look for that guy?"

Zack sighed. "I know that you'd react badly if I told you. Why? Because Micchi was a friend. No, he IS our friend. No matter what bad things he used to do. It's been months. Most of us have managed to get our lives back together again, almost like we used to. But Micchi... he might still be haunted by the things that happened three months ago. I just... want to do something to help him."

Peko scoffed at him. "Help? Him, of all people? Zack, why should you care about that Kureshima Mitsuzane?" Peko started shaking his head. "A friend?" he said with a disgusted look, "Kureshima Mitsuzane is not MY friend! I don't consider him as a friend!"

Zack rolled his eyes at his friend. "No matter what you say, Peko... Micchi was part of the Beat Rider group and he'll always will be. Yes, Micchi had done a lot of bad things; a lot of mistakes and bad choices, but he's also amongst the few that knew about Helheim. About everything that happened to Zawame before. Like us, Micchi's also a survivor. But unlike us, the scars from those times might still be hurting him."

"Then let him be hurt still, as if I care! Why should you bother about him anyway?"

"Because that's what Kouta and Mai would have done if they're still here. And also... I've been thinking about this ever since that time. Micchi's situation had been _nagging_ on my mind for a long time."

Zack shrugged. "Ever since I learned that Micchi have also returned to live here in Zawame, I've been trying to get him back to join the team. But he even stopped coming by to watch us dance now, I needed to find a way to talk to him again. There's no way I could give up on him. Please understand... Peko."

"I don't understand you! No way I'll ever accept—wait, _that_ time?" Peko was quiet for a moment. "Yes, I _thought_ you've been acting weird since that time. What happened before when those JSDF people took you, old guy Oren and Jounouchi away? You never did say anything about that!"

"It's complicated, Peko... I—"

Peko groaned loudly. "Forget it. I don't want to hear anything. Anything about Kureshima Mitsuzane annoys me. But honestly, Zack... I can't believe you're still _trying_ to get him back to the team."

Zack sighed. "It's been a while, Peko. Everything has passed after all. And after everything we've been through, there's no way I could ignore Micchi once I know he's still alive..."

"Zack!" Peko snapped firmly. "That guy tried to _kill me_ before. And he almost succeeded in doing that _even_. He LIED to us about who he was! All those time when we had no clue about what Yggdrasil has been planning. THAT guy knew it all along! There's no way in hell I could accept him back into the team."

"Wait... Micchi—perhaps there was a reason for the things he did! Perhaps he didn't mean to keep all those secrets... Peko, please!" Zack tried to grab Peko's arm as Peko wrenched it away from him. "Peko... I mean, I can't force you to forgive Micchi all at once but—what if it had been Kaito? Would you have also do the same? I—"

"DON'T YOU DARE BRING KAITO INTO THIS! DON'T EVEN TRY TO COMPARE!" Peko gave Zack a wordless glare before storming back into their old Baron base.

Zack sighed again before silently following his friend back inside the building. Stopping to glance towards the grey sky, he wondered how should he have handled the situation better. Three months. He thought by now, any old grudges would have dissipated. Like how the rivaltry between the many different teams in the past have stopped. Guess it won't be as easy as he thought.

A headline on the local newspaper caught Zack's attention as he recognized some of the faces that he saw in it. Some members of the former Team Red Hot had been caught for robbing another bank. He snorted at that.

Some people don't change. He recalled how Sonomura and his team used Inves before to commit crimes. Suppose, old habits die hard.

Zack's thoughts went back to Micchi again.

But perhaps not _all bad people_ remained bad. He recalled how Micchi had looked every time he managed to catch him sneaking a peek at the dance group. The look on Micchi's face wasn't that of a person looking down on other people. Of a person who had no remorse over his own sins. The look that Micchi always had was that of someone who longed for something that was once lost.

Perhaps Micchi's intention had been the same as all of them. To protect what was important. But perhaps, like Kaito... Micchi had chosen the wrong way to achieve his goals. And now when he thought of it, when Micchi returned after the fall of Yggdrasil... the garage and the people in it weren't that welcoming to that guy. Sure, during that time none of them had been aware of the truth... yet so much had changed during that time between the first overlord appearance in Zawame and Micchi's reappearance. Micchi might have been uncomfortable about such change... and felt _alienated_.

Perhaps that had been the start of the changes. When Sengoku Ryoma betrayed his Chief; Kureshima Takatora... Micchi's brother. That moment that soon led to Redyue appearing in Zawame and taking over the Tower. Returning to the garage after all of that to find the 'team' he was part of becoming a whole lot different than the ones he was used to. What would Micchi have felt then?

Of course, none of them would have been aware that there's something wrong with Micchi, let alone ask him about it. Like how he had never been aware that Kaito would have a rather distorted view on how things should be done. Was there even any chance for Micchi to tell them about his connection to Yggdrasil before? Would they even be able to accept the truth, considering back then they had little trust on anything related to Yggdrasil? Could Micchi even be able to trust them to have faith in him?

Could _they_ have pushed Micchi away back then without realizing? Could that be why Micchi had pushed them away?

Zack turned his glance towards the staircase as he thought about Peko. It would be hard to try to convince Peko to change his mind about Micchi, but he didn't want to give up on that guy. He lost a friend—two more actually, but those two weren't actually confirmed dead—and he was reluctant to lose any more friends. And even if it had been brief, he used to fight Inves alongside Micchi... and those times, Micchi wasn't exactly a_bad_ ally.

He had failed to stop—and save—his friend Kaito from taking a path of no return. Yet, perhaps right now he could still save_someone_.

Zack took out his found and stared long at it... before dialing for Rat's number...

xxx

"Thank you very much..." said Jounouchi before leaving the bookshop. The shop assistant just smiled at him as Jounouchi clutched the new set of books he was carrying. He had been trying to create his own version of a new desert, and he needed some other ideas on different ways to improve his new recipe... so it won't hurt to look out for more recipe books. There was this certain pastry chef that he'd gotten to like. A celebrity chef from abroad who specialized in making personalized cakes. He was thinking to learn something new to try surprising Oren-san and show that he could do more than what he already accomplished. That could be good for business...

Something suddenly caught his eye as he noticed something—someone—from across the street. It was a flower shop. There's nothing interesting about that aside from the shop lady trying to sell some flower bouquet—was that Micchi?

Jounouchi's eyes immediately went wide as he tried to take a closer look. The small body did looked like Micchi, but he didn't remember seeing him wear anything that looked so worn out. The young man's face suddenly turned slightly towards him as Jounouchi realised that it was indeed Micchi.

"Micchi!" he called out as Micchi suddenly turned towards him in alarm. Without warning, Micchi started to run away; leaving the shop lady still holding her flowers, as Jounouchi gave chase.

But just as he turned into a corner, Jounouchi lost Micchi's trail.

"Damn!" he cursed loudly as he now understood Zack's concern about finding Micchi.


End file.
